race/ethnicity

Ricardo G. sent in a link to a British campaign encouraging citizens to ride the train.  The campaign features a Mexican wrestler named Loco Toledo.

The commercials basically feature him acting weird (“loco” means crazy), speaking broken English, and comparing the awesomeness of England’s train system with Mexico’s. An example:

How exactly is this different than the Frito Bandito and the Sleepy Sanka Mexican?

Other examples of contemporary advertising campaigns featuring demeaning racial and ethnic stereotypes: the U-Washee, KFC thinks Asians are ridiculous, Native American sports mascots, racism in identity theft ads, Indian, Chinese, and Italian stereotypes in superbowl ads, Asian kitch, selling noodles with Asian enlightenment, and Mr. Wasabi.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

In earlier posts, we’ve highlighted instances in which contradictions in U.S. culture become glaringly clear.  In one, suggestive advertising accompanies an article critiquing a video game in which the player rapes a woman.  In another, CNN asks whether Jon and Kate Gosselin are getting too much media coverage, and then tempts you to read more media coverage about Jon and Kate Gosselin.  In a third, neighbor billboards carry hilariously contradictory messages.

I found another example that left me shaking my head.  Via Racialicious, I found myself reading a Time magazine article reporting on recent research that shows that, even when black and whites are portrayed as equal on television, viewers come away with subconscious anti-black bias that actually translates into bias in real life.  The findings are pretty dismal.

Two paragraphs into the article, there was a promotional link… for television (see the bolded, red parenthetical sentence):

So, yeah, television is likely inculcating you with racist views; “the transmission of race bias appears to occur subconsciously, unbeknownst to the viewer”… but don’t let that stop you from enjoying awesome TV!

The second promotional link, halfway through the article, was just salt in the wound:

And, of course, they couldn’t let your thoughts linger on social justice issues when there are great TV series out there to see!

The final paragraphs:

Maybe they are hoping that we’ll watch the top 10 TV ads and episodes more critically?

These promotional inserts may very well be automatically generated, but the article is dated Dec. 17th, so clearly no one at Time has been alerted to, or cares about, the possibility that they may trivialize the message of the article, or even draw people away from it as early as two paragraphs in.  What Timewants is for you to waste as much time on their website as possible.  Apparently any ideological commitment to fighting racism is secondary at best.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Robin H., Tomi L., and Kate McL. asked us to talk about the new movie, Avatar.   Tomi thought the gender politics were great, with men and women as equals fighting and ruling side-by-side.  I think she’s right.  It’s a great example of a cultural product that makes little of gender difference.  (UPDATE: Though commenters are disagreeing on this point quite insightfully.)

With that said, I want to comment on the race politics in the movie (I do so indebted to Annalee Newitz and Eric Repphun; you might also be interested in Meloukhia’s comments from a disability studies perspective).

First, a summary (super spoiler alert):

Avatar is a moral re-evaluation of colonization. In the movie, humans go about killing and displacing the indigenous population of another planet, the Na’vi, in order to extract a valuable mineral.

The Na’vi are a fantastical version of indigenous populations encountered by Europeans during colonization. They wear features, bones, and skins; they have a deep spirituality and a ritual-filled life; they are accomplished and principled warriors; they hunt and fight with bows and arrows; and they have an intense connection to nature (the end of the black braided ponytail of the Na’vi contains mysterious filaments that plug into the flora and fauna, allowing a sort of mind meld with the animals and the planet). They are, in short, the stereotypical “noble savage.”

In the movie, humans use technology to transport their consciousnesses into home-grown native bodies.

A character, Jake Sully, and his avatar:

They use these bodies to infiltrate and befriend the Na’vi, all with the intention of furthering the goals of mineral extraction.  Through our hero, Sully, we discover the moral superiority of the Na’vi people.  His own exceptional nature is also revealed.

Sully being blessed by the Goddess, a sign that the Na’vi should accept him:

Later, the chief’s daughter falls in love with him.

The anthropological effort to convince the Na’vi to give up their land fails and so the humans decide to take the land by force, wantonly destroying their home and killing any Na’vi that get in the way. A handful of humans, led now by Sully, defect and join the Na’vi.  During the battle, both the chief and the rightful inheritor of the role die.  After they win the battle, Sully assumes the role of chief, with the highest ranking female at his side.

In the end, Sully abandons his (disabled) human body and the Goddess transfers his consciousness into his avatar body. He has, literally, “gone native.”

Now, to the commentary:

Avatar is a fantasy in which the history of colonization is rewritten, but it a fantasy specifically for white people living with a heavy dose of liberal guilt. And it is one that, ultimately, marginalizes indigenous peoples and affirms white supremacy.

If it were a fantasy for, say, the American Indian population in the U.S., the story might go a little differently. In that fantasy there would be no Sully character. It’s that simple.

The Sully character is white redemption embodied; he “…is liberal guilt made flesh.”  His character redeems the human race (i.e., people of European descent) by proving that at least some of us (guilty liberals) are good. Whites can identify with Sully instead of the humans who orchestrate the genocide and displacement.

But Sully is not only a superior human being, he is also a superior Na’vi. After being briefly ostracized for his participation in the land grab, he tames the most violent creature in the sky, thereby proving himself to be the highest quality warrior imaginable per the Na’vi mythology.  He gives them hope, works out their strategy, and is their most-valuable-weapon in the war. In the end, with all Na’vi contenders for leadership conveniently dead, he assumes the role of chief… and gets the-most-valuable-girl for good measure. Throngs of Na’vi bow to him.

As Annalee Newitz summarized in her excellent commentary:

This is a classic scenario you’ve seen in non-scifi epics from Dances With Wolves to The Last Samurai, where a white guy manages to get himself accepted into a closed society of people of color and eventually becomes its most awesome member.

I’m going to speculate that, if this were a fantasy written for a colonized population, the hero would come from their own ranks and, at the end of the movie, they would continue life on their land, with their culture intact, under Na’vi leadership, without a human in sight.

But that would be a movie that alienated the colonizer. And since history is written, and rewritten, by the victor, Avatar is what we get.

And it is a safe fantasy because the fight is over. During most of the encounter between Europeans and the indigenous populations in the Americas, stereotypes were cruel and dehumanizing. The “noble savage” stereotype that we are familiar with emerged only after the threat of American Indian resistance was long gone. We re-cast our enemy in romantic terms only after we won the war. How nice for us. It turns out our foe was a worthy one, making us look all the more impressive for being the victor. We can now pretend that we had deep respect for them all along.

Europeans can enjoy Avatar precisely because there is no risk to admitting that colonization was wrong. We can wallow in guilt about it and, still, the likelihood that power dynamics will be reconfigured in any meaningful way is just about zero.

(Images borrowed from here, here, and here.)

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

The MTV series, Jersey Shore, has been accused of ethnic bias and Denny and Lynda Lou suggested we discuss it.  The reality show features eight 20-something Italian Americans in a Real World-type situation (all living together in the same house on the beach) and is currently most famous for the scene where Snooki gets socked, hard, in the face:

It features, as does nearly every reality show involving 20-somethings, a lot of ridiculous, immature behavior, a celebration of party-culture and anti-intellectualism, and capitulation to the pornification of American culture.

The show is accused of being discriminatory not because it involves all those things, but because it specifically involves Italian Americans, who vocally embrace the term “Guido,” doing all of those things.

So what exactly is the problem with Jersey Shore?

The problem is that, because of negative stereotypes about Italian Americans, the bad behavior of the show’s stars will be attributed, by some, to their Italian American-ness.  If the show simply featured young people, who didn’t identify with a particular ethnic or racial group, the bad behavior might be attributed to youth or attention-starved-reality-show-celebrities.  But when we mark a group as Other (in this case, specifically Italian American), their behavior suddenly reflects on the whole group.

This is never true for the unmarked, neutral category whose identity is so normalized and mainstreamed as to be invisible.  In these cases, bad behavior is individualized (“that person is immoral or crazy” instead of “those people are immoral or crazy”).

So part of what makes Jersey Shore problematic is the context.  Because Italian Americans are Othered in the U.S., a show featuring them will inevitably be used by some to confirm negative stereotypes of the group.  But, of course, MTV is facilitating this by putting together a show that features Italian Americans exclusively, encouraging us to notice their Italian Americanness specifically and, therefore, making their ethnicity salient when we react with horror and disgust at what we see.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Dmitriy T.M. sent in the clip below in which Senator Lindsey Graham (R – South Carolina) explains that health care reform will be bad because it will require his state to subsidize health care for poor people… and black people:

Graham’s mistake is a common one and one that contributes to penalizing and inhumane treatment of the poor in the U.S. He is conflating race and class. White people = not poor; black people = poor. Therefore, a high percentage of black people = a drain on society.

Here’s the reality: a higher percentage of the black population is poor, compared to whites. BUT, and this is a big “but,” most poor people are white because white people make up between 70 and 75% of the U.S. population.

However, a belief that that poor people tend to be black and black people tend to be poor is useful for those who want to stifle any redistribution of wealth. The conflation means that opposition to policies designed to alleviate the suffering of poverty can be based in both classism and racism.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Reader Jennifer E.B. alerted us to the Dutch tradition of Zwarte Piet, “Black Pete.”  Jennifer writes:

I grew up in a town that was overwhelmingly Dutch.  Most people in town had Dutch anscestry (though not my family), there was a Dutch festival each spring, and before Christmas there was a Sinterklaas parade (Dutch Santa Claus).  When we were there for Christmas this year both of my daughters received a chocolate in the shape of their initial in their stockings from my sister.  I had let them have some of the chocolate several times before the background picture on the box caught my eye.

What Jennifer saw was what looked like a character in blackface (product found here):

Jennifer did some digging and she discovered that Zwarte Piet is a traditional Christmas Sinterklaas character in the Netherlands.

Lulu Helder at the Museum of Racist Memorobilia explains:

The role is usually played by a white woman or man who wears black or brown grease paint on their faces (Saint Nicholas is always performed by a man). He or she wears large golden earrings, a curly wig and red lipstick. Right now they wear brown grease paint more often because “the blackness frightens children”.

Once the transformation is completed, a change in voice and behaviour usually follow. He or she will speak improper Dutch with a low voice and a Surinamese accent.

Below the jump are some pictures (not safe for work):

more...

So, what do you think:  Is this Gap ad featuring Black people dancing and singing about the “hood” using stereotypes to appeal to black people?  Or white people?  In the latter case, would you consider this a form of objectification?  (Unfortunately, I don’t know when or where it aired.)

For more, see my series of posts about how and why people of color are included in advertising aimed mainly at white people.

Via The Feminist Agenda.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Cassidy P., Kailey V., Adèle G., and Allie L. sent in a gift guide put together by the New York Times specifically for people “Of Color” (center bottom):

The guide lumps together all non-white groups, suggests that they are interested in race- and culture-specific products and implies that white people would NOT be interested in these things.  Some examples:

The guide illustrates something we’ve discussed several times on this blog: the fact that there “needs” to be a guide specifically for people of color reveals that all the other products and guides, ostensibly for “people,” are really for white people.  Things that are marketed to non-white people are, supposedly, inherently uninteresting or irrelevant to white people.

Ultimately, this reinforces the idea that people of color are always outsiders in a white world.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.